Flower Power

The London Telegraph reports that the latest "cause" for environmentalists in Britain is flowers, many brought in for Valentine's day. Apparently, many of the flowers are imported from far away (e.g. Africa) by plane. Planes, like cars, give off emissions. Thus, buying flowers, or at least ones not locally grown, allegedly contributes to global warming. That is absolutely ridiculous. Do they not realize that in this context, flowers are consumer goods just like anything else? Do they not realize that all sorts of goods are imported every single day, many of them by plane? If they take that logic to its extreme then no consumer goods at all should be imported since it is concievable that everything can be produced locally. Imagine what that would do to the economy, not just for Britain, but for all countries exporting to Britain.

No Statistics

After a few winter months of warmer than normal temperatures and hardly any snow, the last few weeks (especially the last one) have erased all memories of that time. I now realize that we have three kinds of winter temperatures here in Toronto. Cold, damn cold, and... Winnipeg.